Research progress of stem cell therapy for endometrial injury.

Endometrial damage is an important factor leading to infertility and traditional conventional treatments have limited efficacy. As an emerging technology in recent years, stem cell therapy has provided new hope for the treatment of this disease. By comparing the advantages of stem cells from different sources, it is believed that menstrual blood endometrial stem cells have a good application prospect as a new source of stem cells. However, the clinical utility of stem cells is still limited by issues such as colonization rates, long-term efficacy, tumor formation, and storage and transportation. This paper summarizes the mechanism by which stem cells repair endometrial damage and clarifies the material basis of their effects from four aspects: replacement of damaged sites, paracrine effects, interaction with growth factors, and other new targets. According to the pathological characteristics and treatment requirements of intrauterine adhesion (IUA), the research work to solve the above problems from the aspects of functional bioscaffold preparation and multi-functional platform construction is also summarized. From the perspective of scaffold materials and component functions, this review will provide a reference for comprehensively optimizing the clinical application of stem cells.

Expression and clinical significance of TIMELESS in glioma.

In recent years, studies have shown that TIMELESS, as an oncogene, is involved in progression of cancers. However, its relationship with prognosis in glioma patients is rarely reported. Our purpose was to explore the role of TIMELESS in glioma. Based on 1814 glioma samples from multiple databases such as The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), The Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA), and The Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), we use a variety of bioinformatics methods to verify the mechanism of action of TIMELESS in glioma from mRNA to protein, from appearance to mechanism analysis, from clinical features to prognosis. Then, the connectivity map (CMap) tool was used to predict drugs that inhibit the expression of TIMELESS. First, we found TIMELESS is highly expressed in glioma at mRNA and protein levels. Second, TIMELESS is an independent risk factor in prognosis and has suitable clinical diagnostic value in glioma. It was also positively correlated with World Health Organization (WHO) grade, age, and histology, and negatively correlated with isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) 1 mutation and 1p19q codeletion. Third, base excision, cell cycle, and mismatch repair pathway were activated by TIMELESS in glioma. We predict small molecules to inhibit TIMELESS such as 8-azaguanine, gw8510, 6-thioguanosine, and ursodeoxycholic acid. This study is the first comprehensive analysis of TIMELESS, revealing a relationship between this novel oncogene, clinical characteristics of patients with glioma, and a mechanism leading to poor prognosis. It also provides a biomarker for diagnosis and treatment of glioma and reveal the pathologic progress of glioma at the genetic level.

Expression and clinical significance of UBE2V1 in cervical cancer.

The majority of cervical cancer (CC) patients are caused by the high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) infection Although they are preventable and controllable, the mortality rate is still high. It is essential to identify the biomarkers for early screening and diagnosis of CC to improve the prognosis of patients with CC. The conjugating enzyme 2 (E2) family members are the key components of ubiquitin protease system. However, the role of E2 family in CC remains unclear. We aimed to investigate the role of UBE2V1, a ubiquitin binding E2 enzyme variant protein (ube2v) without conserved cysteine residues required for E2s catalytic activity in CC. In this study, we first studied the expression of UBE2V1 in CC by real time quantitative PCR (RT-qPCR), and then, the clinical information of 191 CC patients in TCGA database was retrieved to explore the relationship between the expression of UBE2V1 and the occurrence and development of CC by examining the translational profile and methylation, the high expression of UBE2V1 was well correlated to the poor prognosis of patients, indicating that UBE2V1 is an independent risk factor for the prognosis of CC patients. The expression of UBE2V1 was also correlated with clinical stages, tumor grades and TNM stages of CC. In addition, the expression of UBE2V1 was slightly negatively correlated with the methylation at the multiple methylation sites. our study revealed the relationship between UBE2V1 and the occurrence and development of CC from the level of transcriptional profile and DNA methylation. UBE2V1 is a novel candidate biomarker for the diagnosis, screening and prognosis of CC.

A new type of noncovalent surface-π stacking interaction occurring on peroxide-modified titania nanosheets driven by vertical π-state polarization.

Noncovalent π stacking of aromatic molecules is a universal form of noncovalent interactions normally occurring on planar structures (such as aromatic molecules and graphene) based on sp2-hybridized atoms. Here we reveal a new type of noncovalent surface-π stacking unusually occurring between aromatic groups and peroxide-modified titania (PMT) nanosheets, which can drive versatile aromatic adsorptions. We experimentally explore the underlying electronic-level origin by probing the perturbed changes of unoccupied Ti 3d states with near-edge X-ray absorption fine structures (NEXAFS), and find that aromatic groups can vertically attract π electrons in the surface peroxo-Ti states and increase their delocalization regions. Our discovery updates the concept of noncovalent π-stacking interactions by extending the substrates from carbon-based structures to a transition metal oxide, and presents an approach to exploit the surface chemistry of nanomaterials based on noncovalent interactions.

Direct synthesis of defective ultrathin brookite-phase TiO2 nanosheets showing flexible electronic band states.

We report a one-pot protocol to prepare ultrathin nanosheets of brookite-phase TiO2 through hydrolyzing TiCl3 in formamide. This 2D titania is defective and shows flexible electronic states and enhanced surface reactivity, which is probed by H2O2 adsorption, catalytic TMB oxidation, and X-ray absorption fine structure. The nanosheets provide a new 2D platform to exploit the applications of TiO2 in catalysis, energy conversion and storage.

Reconstructing 1D Fe Single-atom Catalytic Structure on 2D Graphene Film for High-Efficiency Oxygen Reduction Reaction.

The ordinary intrinsic activity and disordered distribution of metal sites in zero/one-dimensional (0D/1D) single-atom catalysts (SACs) lead to inferior catalytic efficiency and short-term endurance in the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), which restricts the large-scale application of hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells and metal-air batteries. To improve the activity of SACs, a mild synthesis method was chosen to conjugate 1D Fe SACs with 2D graphene film (Fe SAC@G) that realized a composite structure with well-ordered atomic-Fe coordination configuration. The product exhibits outstanding ORR electrocatalytic efficiency and stability in 0.1 M KOH aqueous solution. DFT-D computational results manifest the intrinsic ORR activity of Fe SAC@G originated from the newly-formed FeN4 -O-FeN4 bridge structure with moderate adsorption ability towards ORR intermediates. These findings provide new ways for designing SACs with high activity and long-term stability.